In the new issue of Regulation, economist Pierre Lemieux argues that the recent oil price decline is at least partly the result of increased supply from the extraction of shale oil. The increased supply allows the economy to produce more goods, which benefits some people, if not all of them. Thus, contrary to some commentary in the press, cheaper oil prices cannot harm the economy as a whole.

Two long wars, chronic deficits, the financial crisis, the costly drug war, the growth of executive power under Presidents Bush and Obama, and the revelations about NSA abuses, have given rise to a growing libertarian movement in our country – with a greater focus on individual liberty and less government power. David Boaz’s newly released The Libertarian Mind is a comprehensive guide to the history, philosophy, and growth of the libertarian movement, with incisive analyses of today’s most pressing issues and policies.

Tag: richard thaler

Justice Scalia is arguing that if the court lets Congress create a mandate to buy health insurance, nothing could stop Congress from passing laws requiring everyone to buy broccoli and to join a gym…Can anyone imagine Congress passing a broccoli mandate law, much less the court allowing it to take effect?

Yes annnnd…yes. Next question.

Surely, the justices have the conceptual resources to draw a distinction between the health care market and the market for broccoli. And even if they don’t, then all the briefs, the zillions of blog posts and a generation’s worth of economic literature can help them.

If drawing a constitutionally meaningful distinction between the markets for health insurance and broccoli is child’s play for Thaler, he should school all the brief- and blog-post-writers who so far have failed. That would have been a more productive use of his thousand words than his build-up to this thesis:

If you are opposed to a policy, state your case based on the merits — not on the imagined risk of what else might happen down the road. The path of that road is so unpredictable that it may even produce a U-turn.

Good grief. Slippery-slope arguments are about principles. As in, “If you concede this principle because you don’t mind the result here, you will no longer have it to protect you against that bad result there.” Thaler’s thesis would lead, for example, to all manner of civil-liberties violations by the state because there simply isn’t enough political support to protect all the civil liberties of various minorities. But Thaler doesn’t want us to think about things like consequences or the future.

The potential for U-turns makes no more sense as an argument against invoking slippery slopes principles, because principled arguments can help generate the U-turn that opponents of, say, ObamaCare want to see.

I take silly arguments like this to be evidence that ObamaCare supporters are in complete panic mode.

One often-cited example takes place in the cafeteria: Put fruit and healthy snacks up front, and people will be more likely to choose them. Put the chocolate cake first, and that’s what they pick instead. Paternalism, the argument runs, lies on a continuum, and some forms of it are really quite harmless. It’s not (or not only) a boot stamping on a human face forever. It’s also the nice lady at the cafeteria, who helps you pick out healthy food. Healthy food is what you really wanted anyway. So what could be wrong with that?

Whitman, however, turns the argument around a bit: Legislators, too, suffer from bias. What if paternalistic legislation proves sort of like that chocolate cake? By placing it up front, and by making it look appealing, legislators may choose it too often, and they may neglect the healthier – but to them less appealing – choice of freedom. What if a little paternalism now turns into a lot of paternalism later? And where are our “real” preferences, anyway? Whitman offers arguments for why a slippery slope may very well exist here, and examples of how the theory of soft paternalism has developed teeth in practice.

Joining him later this week will be noted economists Richard Thaler, Jonathan Klick, and Shane Frederick, for a discussion that should last through the next couple of weeks. Be sure to stop by often and see it develop.